Monday, September 26, 2016

This letter will be very short. Nowhere near what I'd like since I normally love sharing miracles in detail. Last night we went to bed early so we could wake up earlier this morning for extra meetings. Sunday was amazing. We went to Mission Prep at 7:00. I sang Rock of Ages and Elder Costa played the piano at at 9:00 Sacrament meeting. We taught junior primary at 10:25. Then we practiced for another special musical number right after that. We taught junior primary at 11:25. I played piano and played a duet with Elder Costa as he played violin in a 12:25 class. I played piano, Elder Costa played violin, and a less active lady played theother violin for "The Lord is My Shepherd" in a 1:00 sacrament meeting. So that was our day and it was amazing and we have been busy all day but wow the spirit has been amazing. I wanted to leave my last Sunday with a BANG and I feel it was great!Normally I would say I hope I don't leave Elder Costa for transfers because I have so much to learn from him... he is amazing...but it won't change transfers so all I can do is take with me what he has taught me and continue to apply it as well as everything else I've learned.I read "Jesus: The Perfect Leader Today" I think the "our potential" section stood out to me the most. I know I have a lot I just have to continue to improve my prformance even just a little bit. This, of coarse, will happen as I continue to study my scriptures, ready to learn something, pray, and go to church.Of coarse I invite all of you to do these things to even though they seem simple and small but honestly the first thing we tend to stop doing is reading every single day. Once we stop doing one thing it is so easy to stop doing the rest of them...don't let this happen. Keep your testimony strong! Keep your faith growing! I love each of you.Have an amazingly wonderfuly awesome week!

Here it is! Finally feeling like I"m sprinting. We started this transfer off strong with a baptism and several lessons and the last couple weeks have not been to hot. But Saturday...Saturday was a tender mercy of the Lord and it was amazing. We went to a house this evening, we thought it was a family with a Spanish last name but it ended up being a house full of Y.S.A. One guy was on the porch smoking and I didn't even see him till we were almost at the door because it was dark but then I saw the light from the cigarette. He said hey. He was super friendly and we talked for a bit. Then I started to do the 4 minute restoration (he was a non member, Catholic but not active) and I got through the first 2 principles but then two other people walked out of the house and started talking to us and asked us where we were from and stuff and I was like nooooo we were so close :) I kindachuckled in my head. But the guy that came out was a less active who is dating a non member gal. He is less active but he know the ordinances done in the church are true and when we asked if we could come by he said yes he would love it. He wants his girlfriend to take the lessons. I was so happy. Also, sad because they are Y.S.A. but I don't care because I know we were where the Lord needed us to find him. And he is ready and I feel the other guy will be receptive. And I was very happy too because Elder Bowen is the Y.S.A. over him and he is an amazing missionary and so is Elder Owens. And we went to a bbq one ward through tonight and thier was an 18 yr old from Tennessee (near where im from in Tennessee) who just so happens to be here for one more week visiting his active grandparents. He isn't a member because his parent are inactive. He is actually Baptist. But what are the chances that we met tonight. Not coincidence I promise you that. And we hit it off great...he's redneck ;) which is home for me. So when I get home were gonna hangout and go hunting or something awesome. He is a great guy and I'm excited to have to opprotunity to have a chance to share the gospel with him when I get home! And finnally their was another very special expirience tonight with another less active man who I, for a reason I dont know yet, have a surprising amount of love for and desire to help. We went to stop by this less active guys house to talk to his non member son. We ended up talking to the father the whole time because his son wasn't home. I'd talked to the father before just once. This was the best part of the night. We talked for a good 20 minutes and he asked sincere questions about after we die. We talked about desire, the eternal principle of repentence, and the infinite atonement and what the infinite part means for us. All myanswers were directed by the spirit...I could feel this.

Elder Costa and I are doing great! I love him. He is helping me sprint and he is helping me in ways he doesn't even know. I am so grateful to have him as my companion my last transfer. I know he will do great. The thing is I've tried to help him understand that even though he is junior companion thier is no diffrence in between us, asin, he can say whats on his mind that we can improve or where he thinks we should go. But he is amazing. I know he will be good as a senior companion. He has amazing ideas that I don't even think of sometimes that I should, having been out for two years. Anyway, those are the things I've noticed. I've been learning a lot reading from the new testimant. One thing imparticular that I've shared with my district is when Satan is tempting Jesus. He tells him to jump off the building, that he can call angels to catch him, and he says no you shouldn't tempt god. Then he goes to the top of the mountains and there also satan tempts him with the kingdoms if he worships him. In these verses it reads, 10. then saith Jesus unto him, get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.11. Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.

Now I understand through J.S.T and a talk from Elder Bednar that ministered unto him was Jesus turning outward yet again and sending angels to minister unto John but I thought of that after my initial thoughts which were how I found it interesting refering to a scripture that says, "you shall receive a witness after the trial of your faith" that after Jesus said get thee hence Satan (and keep in mind these were pretty big trials/temptation that Jesus still had to overcome) that angels came and ministered unto him. At the time, and I still like thinking of it like this, I realized in this instance and I'm sure I'll see others too, Jesus also had to act with faith first then receive a witness of certain things. This stuck out so powerfully to me as a missionary in the situation we have been in of kind of a "drout" in our teaching pool just how important diligence and exact obedience is. And Saturday we witnessed that for sure and I know we will continue to have a witness of that.

So I am sorry I didn't email last week. Tuesday was our preparation day because we went to the temple!!! Which is awesome because I get to go again in a week and a half! Haven't had that since the m.t.c😆Last Monday we got to participate in something called a temple run. Lols yes I realize that is a game on a phone but that is not what we did. We ran 5 miles from the Ocquirr Mountain Temple to...somewhere else. It was loads of fun. I saw about every missionary I know who is still on thier mission and I saw several of my old companions. And I saw a couple people from previous areas! SISTER HERMANSON!!ELDER BLOCK!!...and others...sorry this is two weeks ago so I can't remember everyone I saw. Anyway once we were done we stayed and talked for a bit Sister Lansing (Mission President's wife) was waiting at the end and taking pictures of all the missionaries when they finished, and then we saw President Lansing run around the corner and a lot of missionaries ran to him to finish with him and then, right out of a classic comedy, he fell just before getting to the finish line. First we made sure he was ok then we laughed a little bit.

Tuesday was preperation day and it was busy but something super exciting happened. We went to a Walmart that is away from our area because we were going to Ross so I could get new shoes and we were in the check out line and I glanced to my right (I've had a couple times when I see someone a recognize but I can't for the life of me remember which stake they were in that I served in but their name... I also usually cant remember) but this time it took me no time to realize that Brother Richeson from my home ward in Tennessee was standing thier! It made my day! It was so good to see him 😱🤗 but it was a little hard cause I couldnt talk very long and share stories cause I knew my comp wanted to do stuff and I wasn't about to talk about home lol but it wasreally nice to see a friend of the family. We also went to the temple which is where I learned my temple recommend card had expired...I wouldn't have minded too much because I knew I was foing to the temple again in a week and a half anyway but my companion wouldn't be able to go again for another 3 months. They couldn't contact my Mission President but it all worked out in the end 😉

Wednesday we had an amazing Zone Conference that motivated me alot. And I didn't have to conduct a district meeting! Haha

Thursday and Friday were both full of trying to contact people but not much happened

Saturday my companion went to a Brazilian party all day.

Sunday we went to a Regional Conference wow it was amazing! The third talk was all about missionary work with members and the fourth one somewhat chastised Utah? But it also had alot of love in it. The missionary talk focused on sisters for about five minutes that was super cool cause sisters are awesome!

This was a good week. We went out with Elder Woolums earlier this week and we stopped by a name one of the Bishops had given him of a part member family. So we stopped by and the wife(member) and her daughterwere outside. We talked to them for a little and asked if her husband was home. She said yes then went in the house and asked if he wanted to meet with us and he said sure. We got to know him for a couple minutes but the game was going to be on soon so we shared a brief message about the plan of salvation with him. Testified. Then invited them to read drom the Book of Mormon until our next visit(next week). It was an uplifting opportunity. I'm excited to comtinue teaching him. Studies also went well. Even though I did not have to prepare for a District Meeting for Tuesday I was studying alot on the Atonement and I feel good about the activity I want to do with my District for District Meeting. I know it will uplift us :)Elder costa is wonderful. He has been a little sad about not being able to express alot in english but today he got back from the Portuguese party/o.y.m opportunity and was so happy. He talked to so many people and it was mostly in Portuguese and he felt the spirit strong. We were in the car and he said to me (not in a pridefullyway), "Elder today I know I am a good missionary" that made me so happy because I've been trying to tell him that so I said,"I'm glad you can finally see that" I'm so happy for him, he will be so amazing in people lives. He already is but now he knows he can be.